Yer a Wizard, Itachi
by Lady Briett
Summary: Uchiha Itachi was supposed to grow up to be a ninja prodigy, but someone had other ideas.
1. Chapter 1

_Some Time in The Future_

 _The Land Formerly Known as Hi no Kuni_

Katsumi was angry.

He usually was, though, so this was no surprise.

The war was not going well. It was never going well. Their enemies were unrelenting. Their supplies were diminishing. Their morale was low.

And his brother was reading a book!

"Eiji, that had better be about strategy," he said, glaring at his younger sibling's prone form.

"No," replied Eiji. "It's about wizards."

Katsumi shrieked. They didn't have _time_ for this! They _never_ had time for this!

"You'd better be at the meeting tonight, with actual ideas," said Katsumi, before stomping off so he could actually DO some actual WORK.

The meeting was not going well. The meetings were never going well.

Tahei, who was possibly missing multiple important parts of his brain, was screaming. Katsumi hated Tahei, but he was, inexplicably, good at fixing guns, so he didn't bring up the proposal of kicking him out. Magoemon was still pretending to be a samurai. Who approved a budget that involved buying him historically accurate armor reproductions! And Eiji was absent. As usual.

"Arin," he said, to the woman on his left, who was looking at her computer intensely. She glared. Whatever.

"You want something?" she asked, sneering.

"Yeah, you know where my brother is? Seeing as you spend so much time together and all."

She glared even more. "He's sick."

Sure he was.

The secret meeting—the one with only the people that _actually_ mattered—was better. It was in the sub-basement. The walls, untouched by sunlight, had ancient paintings of ancient hand-held fans on them. An old woman had told Katsumi once that fans like that were the symbol of his clan. He was skeptical.

Karashini was at the front of the room. His uniform was rumpled. There was never time for ironing. There was never time for anything at all, matter of factually, except war.

"The campaign is not going well," he said, with a calm demeanor that was only a front for the bitter man that lay beneath. "Nothing is going well."

The other people in the room nodded. They knew this. This was the way Karashini started off every meeting. It was true. It was always true.

"We have even bigger issues than usual."

This was also the norm. It was a ritual of sorts, these meetings, but they were soothing in their own way.

"This time, though...we have an idea that will fix everything." And he stepped away from the front.

This was surprising. He never did that. The room tittered nervously.

"Please be quiet," he said, narrowing his eyes. The room quieted immediately. He was not a man you wanted to upset.

Arin walked to the front of the room. Her glasses were held together with electrical tape. It marked her as someone from the Western regions, where the hospital system had broken down long before everyone else's—anyone from this area would've had corrective eye surgery at 15 or 16.

"Continuing the war is an exercise in futility." She paused. Had this been in better times, she would've taken a sip of water for emphasis. But they did not have enough water for that. They never had enough water.

"I have developed a time-stop room. If we are in this room, any changes made by time travellers will not affect us. The reason for this is that the only way to ensure peace is for someone to go back and kill Uchiha Itachi."

There was a collective gasp. They had trained themselves to gasp collectively.

Uchiha Itachi was a shadowy, almost mythological figure. He had been considered a hero, once. Which was odd, because he was no hero. Now, though, he was seen as the harbinger. He had committed some...act of evil…and that act was the beginning of the end for society. Whatever it was had lead to the spiral downwards that resulted in their current war.

"Eiji has volunteered for this," she said. There was more tittering.

Katsumi's heart dropped. He was unsure of how this method of time travel would work (Arin's department was strictly off limits to him), but he knew it meant he would never see Eiji again. _No_ …

His younger brother walked into the room, wobbling anxiously. His borrowed hakama trailed against the floor, too long for his short frame.

"Hi," he said, gulping. He had never been allowed in here before, due to his...tendencies. Among other things.

"Come here," said Arin, looking down her glasses. He obeyed, almost tripping. She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him to the audience.

He was so small. The low collar of his shirt revealed his upper ribs, clearly visible under his pale, nearly translucent skin. Barely one-and-twenty, and yet…

"Eiji's unique talents make him particularly suited to his task," she said, smiling thinly. They all knew what that meant. She didn't have to explain what she meant by talents. Some of the people in the camp, Katsumi included, had magical eyes that turned red in battle and improved their vision. Eiji's eyes, though, were...like that, but also, not like that. He knew why. He did not say why. The things he did with those eyes were...ridiculous. Seemingly impossible. And yet…

"Yeah," he said, attempting to grin. "I'm gonna...um...go back to when he was a baby and, um, remove him from existence."

"This will be occurring next week. Please kindly assist your comrades with moving objects into the time-stop room. It's in..."

Katsumi couldn't focus. His brother! His last remaining family...no, this couldn't be. No. He wouldn't believe it. But he had to. And he knew this was what must be done.

The meeting was dismissed. Eiji walked up to Katsumi, his blue-green eyes watering.

"I'm sorry, onii-san. I should've told you earlier."

"You should have," Katsumi replied. And that was that. They walked back to their quarters in silence.

"I...I think I can come back, though. 'Cause it's not...time travel, exactly, really? It's more like dimensional travel. I can't explain. But..."

"But what?"

"But I don't want to. I hate it here."

"Well, after you've killed Uchiha Itachi, it will be better, I'm sure, as we phase into the new reality." That sounded right, right? Katsumi was unsure. He hoped he was right.

The day of Eiji's departure came quickly. Everyone had been resettled into the time-stop room. It was crowded. Rations had been carefully doled out. The plaster was crumbling in some places. The bunker had been...repurposed.

Eiji himself could not enter. He stood just beyond the doorway. The door was heavy. Once it was closed, he would go. And they would wait until Karashini had determined a safe amount of time had passed.

"One minute left," said Arin. The seals were not quite yet finished powering up. Katsumi had heard snippets of how it worked. He was not sure he wanted to hear the whole details.

"Goodbye, Eiji," said Katsumi.

"Goodbye, onii-san," said Eiji. His eyes were red, and only partly from the magic.

And Katsumi closed the door.

He was not one for hugs.

Eiji had to act quickly. The normal magical defences that kept out enemies had been taken down, except for those surrounding the time-stop bunker. They required too much energy to maintain.

He wanted to see the sun before he left, though. One last glimpse of his homeland. He wended his way through the compound, the thin walls and canvas offering hardly any protection.

Outside. The land was scorched earth. He had read there had been trees here, once. Eiji had never seen a tree. In the distance, smoke. That was bad. He scooped some of the dirt into his pocket.

And then, in a flurry of hand motions, he was drawn into the void.

It was a strange place, of shadows and blocky shapes. He forced himself to go farther and father. His stomach churned. He wasn't even sure where he was going. And then...he knew. Somehow. He allowed himself to exit.

Eiji's jaw dropped.

Was this really the place he had been before? It was not supposed to transport him across distance. But this was so unlike anything he'd ever seen before. He was standing on pavement, and it looked new. The air was _good._ _Clean_. He took a few deep breaths. There were sturdy buildings all around, built in the way he'd only ever seen in fading books before. How could Uchiha Itachi have wanted to destroy a place like this?

"Turn off your Sharingan, boy," said a passing man, hobbling by on his cane. His what? Did he mean his...eyes? Maybe. He turned them off.

He had been unsure what people wore in this time. Magoemon gave him a shorter hakama, and Eiji had awkwardly fashioned an approximation of the top half of a kimono out of the largest fabric scrap he could find and some thin rope. It was not a good look, and it seemed to be out of place. He hoped that didn't give him away. Ah, well.

But how to find Uchiha Itachi? He didn't expect this. The stories spoke of him as a mercenary who roamed the lands finding more people to kill. Eiji had assumed this meant a world similar to his, maybe a slightly different landscape, different clothes, different weapons, not…a city.

He was also not super feeling the whole 'killing a baby' thing. A baby couldn't really be evil, could it? They just kinda...sat there. Evil was made, not born.

Although he knew Katsumi would disagree.

Well, Katsumi wasn't here.

Maybe…

He had an idea. It was bad. But it was an idea.

First, to find the baby of doom. Or whatever.

He began to walk around. There was absolutely nothing familiar. People were a lot taller than he was used to. A well-fed city, then. A little boy ran down the street, being chased by a...man? Boy? He was about the same height as Eiji, but he looked very young.

"Shisui, come back here!" he shouted. "Why do you always do this!"

Shisui? What kind of name was that?

He vaguely recalled seeing a mention of a 'Shunshin no Shisui' in a book, once, but it was such an odd phrase he had never been able to figure out quite what it meant.

The feeling of walking on pavement was odd. It was smoother than the hard sands and dirt of his homeland, but not in the same way as concrete. All the people he saw seemed to have shoes. He had none. Eiji was fairly sure he'd never owned shoes.

"Did you see Itachi? He's so cute!" said a woman going by. Oh! He tried to turn toward her as much as possible without being obvious.

"No, I'm going over there right now," the other woman replied. This was good. He could follow her, and pretend he too wished to see the baby. Perhaps it was brand new.

She walked off to a narrow road between two buildings. There was a word for that, but he was unsure what it was. He'd never had to use it before. Eiji trailed one hand on the side of the building, feeling its smooth wood. It was nice.

The narrow road ended, and they were back in the light. The woman turned around. Oh dear.

"You going to see the baby too, hun?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, smiling weakly.

"You an Uchiha? I've never seen you before, but there's no reason for anyone else to be here unless you were." And she flashed red eyes at him while raising her eyebrows. They looked just like Katsumi's. _Was_ he an Uchiha? He had never had a family name of any sort. He flashed red eyes back, and she smiled. He was uneasy.

The woman walked into a house. Eiji followed. She took off her shoes. She looked at him, ask if to ask why he wasn't taking off his.

"Ah...I haven't got any shoes," he said. "Unfortunate accident." He had used that to explain a lot of the weird things he did, and people usually believed it, because he was a mess. She rolled her eyes.

The house was nice. It looked not quite like those in the books, but almost. He reminded himself he was in the past. It was odd.

And then he heard the baby.

Uchiha Itachi.

The harbinger.

Oh dear, how was he going to hold a baby and make hand motions at the same time? Very carefully, he supposed. He put his hands together so his sleeves covered them and flipped through the motions. He could do this.

The baby.

He saw it.

It—he—was being held by a woman. His mother? What was her name? He didn't know. He didn't know if he had ever known. She had long, dark hair, but it was decidedly...blue. Strange.

The woman he had been following stepped into the room, and he went after her. There were quite a few other people, all women. Eiji felt self-conscious.

"Come to see the baby, hm?" asked the mother. Yes. His head was spinning. He felt like he was about to throw up.

"Gather round, gather round," she said. Everyone moved into a circle. Had they been doing this before he came in? Had they been doing this all day? Eiji was confused. He wanted to go home. But he really didn't have a home anymore, did he?

He was in the middle of the impromptu circle. His palms were sweaty. The baby was passed, cooing a little each time. Eiji had never held a baby before. What if he dropped it? They were all holding it in a very particular way.

Three people. Two people. One person. He turned on his eyes (his Sharingan?). The baby was handed to him.

"Aww," he said.

And then he put his hands together awkwardly underneath the baby and made the hand motions. He could see the people lunging at him. But it was too late. Eiji was already on the other plane.

The space was even more disorienting than usual. The baby started to cry. He walked—in a sense—to his destination. It wasn't quite walking, _per se_ , and he also didn't quite know how to get there. His mind would pull him to the right place if he concentrated enough. It was in a different dimension entirely, so it was much harder than simply going backwards. His arms felt like jelly. The baby's wails grew louder. Where was it? Then he knew. And he exited the plane.

It was just like in the books. There was a swaying house on one side of him, looking like it was about to collapse. He wasn't going there. There was another house, up the hill. It was stone and very strangely shaped.

"That's your new home, Itachi-chan," he whispered, quietly. Eiji really hoped they accepted him, or at least didn't kill him. Keeping Itachi alive and yet incapable of carrying out his horrors was his sole goal, and this seemed like the best way to accomplish it. He walked up to the house. The hill was a struggle; Eiji was unfamiliar with any terrain other than flat. The stairs were normal, at least. He set the baby down on the top step.

He pulled a piece of paper out of his bag. Itachi was clearly an unsuitable name for this region, so he had written down a new one: John. It was the name that came up most frequently in the books of the people here for male characters, so it seemed like a good choice. But...hm, what was his birthday? It was definitely in some of the histories he had read. It seemed better to write down his actual birthday and not just give him a new one.

The sixth month. What was it in this language? June. June...6th. That's right. He knelt down so he would have a flat surface to write on. His pen was nearly out of ink; he couldn't even see any left in the barrel. Hopefully it would work for this. Ahh, just indentations! He tried scribbling a bit to see if that restarted it. Success! Should he write something else? He was not very good at writing in this tongue. Maybe if he put it in his, they could have it translated.

 _I'm very sorry for leaving you this baby. I couldn't think of anyone better to take him. Please don't kill him._

That seemed good enough. He put the paper on Itachi's small form and poked one of his small cheeks.

"Good luck, kid," he whispered.

Then he ran.

Xenophilius Lovegood was sitting on the settee looking for errors in the draft of tomorrow's _Quibbler_ when he heard crying. Was that Luna? No, it couldn't be, Selene had taken her to see her mother. It sounded like it was coming from outside. Maybe Molly had given birth early? But surely she would've gone to St. Mungo's. He decided to get up and see.

The surprise he felt when he saw a baby on his doorstep was...honestly not that high. He was mostly sad, knowing that surely another set of wizarding parents had been killed. The Lovegood family home was sufficiently in the middle of nowhere and sufficiently valueless that it was fairly safe. He picked up the baby and the piece of paper that had been lain on top of it and brought it inside. Xenophilius rocked it gently, knowing that it wouldn't help much to soothe the poor infant, who had probably already seen something horrifying in its first few weeks of life.

He was not soon gone when he heard the distinctive, high pitched keen of a newborn child. Eiji turned around. He could just barely make out the house in the distance. Someone was opening the door. They stepped outside. They picked up the baby and brought him inside. Success.

Now what?

He ran some more.

* * *

A/N: Now you might be saying: That's the most convoluted, garbage plot I've ever seen! Yes! You shoulda seen the original idea, which was Harry (after 5th year) and Sasuke (while at Orochimaru's lair) somehow manage to meet in the Magical Other Plane, use some sort of probably-illegal blood magic thing to understand each other, and go on adventures into other dimensions. The other dimensions were all cliche fanfic ideas, and one of them was 'abusive Fugaku', so naturally they steal baby Itachi and bring him to the Lovegood's. This was pretty bad, but I've already written little John a lot of life in my head, so I thought I'd publish it with a slightly less bad backstory.

Now you might also be saying: We didn't want this! We wanted Anko-sensei and/or Twirl! Yes I know, I'm sorry. I'm currently at college with my nice new laptop, which unfortunately means I don't have access to my computer with the partially finished next chapters of both of those stories. I considered asking my dad to install TeamViewer on my PC or something so I could look at those files, but honestly I'd rather not explain why. But I promise, before the end of November they'll both have new chapters, and I've already got an idea for Anko-sensei that involves everyone's favorite missing nin showing up. Also going to try to finish my zombie apocalypse fic and maaaaybe get some Halloween themed Shi/Ita fanfic up but no promises on either of those.

Also this site wrecked my formatting I promise I understand the concept of paragraph indentations.


	2. Chapter 2

Xeno held the small baby in his arms. He looked at the piece of paper someone had put on him.

"John June 6th" and then...something in what looked like Chinese. He knew some people in the newspaper business who were Chinese, maybe they could translate it for him.

The fact that this baby was Oriental was a bit odd, though. There were wizards from that part of the world in England, but as far as he knew they tried to stay as far away from the war as possible. And he had heard that Voldemort was really only interested in the native English population. Hm. Maybe Dumbledore would know who the infant's parents were, although he really wasn't enjoying the idea of having to talk to Dumbledore.

He wasn't sure what to do at all. The idea of abandoning an already-abandoned baby didn't appeal to him, but he wasn't sure Selene would like the idea of another infant in the house. Luna was a handful enough as it was. He would just hold little John until she came home. Oh, but he was probably so hungry! Well, surely Selene wouldn't mind him giving a poor little baby some milk. John was soon happily suckling on a bottle filled with the formula Selene said she would never use.

The cuckoo clock had chimed once before she got home. Little Luna was in her arms, fast asleep. That was a miracle in and of itself. He heard her walk upstairs, probably to put their daughter in the cradle. The moment of reckoning was soon, he supposed.

She came back downstairs and into the kitchen.

"Hello, Xenophilius," she said.

"Hello, Selene," he said.

"Who is this?," she asked.

"This is John," he said. "Someone left him on the doorstep."

"Hello, John," she said.

The baby did not reply, because he was a baby.

"Where did he come from?"

"I don't know. Someone left him on the doorstep."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Someone left him on the doorstep."

"How?"

"They just put him down and left. I didn't see who did it. But they left us a note. But it's not in English."

"That's bad. I only know English." She looked at him closely. "He's very round. A quality baby."

"I agree. Very high quality. A very nice little cabbage."

"Do you want to keep him?" she asked. "Luna is a lot of work by herself. But on the other hand, it's not every day you get a free baby."

"Babies don't grow on trees, my father always used to say. I think we should." His tone grew somber. "And I suspect his parents were killed by You-Know-Who. That's bad."

"I agree. That is bad. Well, now you've got a son."

"Now I've got a son. That's good."

The cuckoo chimed.

* * *

Selene had fashioned another crib in the woodshop. She thought it was a better idea than duplicating Luna's. Duplicated items can disappear sometimes, after all, and you don't want your baby falling onto the floor. Very bad for babies.

John seemed like a normal baby, just slightly developmentally delayed. The paper said he was born June 6th, but it was July 25th and he hadn't met any of the month-old-baby milestones. Maybe he was premature.

That was another possibility for why he was abandoned, Xeno supposed. He had heard of superstitions in other part of the world that a premature baby was considered bad luck. Selene thought that was ridiculous.  
They decided to wait to find a translator. It seemed like a bad idea to do so immediately, what with the war on and all. They also decided no talking to Dumbledore, because talking to him was a bad idea even without a war on.

Selene was tired of being inside. She had originally only been granted maternity leave until July 1, but the department was willing to extend it to November, since she'd suddenly acquired a new baby. It had been raining for weeks, and she didn't want to risk dropping one of them. Finally the rain let up.

It was hard to carry both of them in her arms. Luna was especially wriggly, as if she were a very large caterpillar. But her caterpillar, so it was okay.

The sunshine was warm and good, like a cheese toastie. The grasses in their front yard swayed in the light breeze. The Weasley chickens clucked distantly. She was not particularly fond of them or their owners. They were all too loud and too red.

Molly was heavily with child. Selene had thought a few months ago that this new Weasley child might make a nice playmate for Luna. But now they had John, and so she would have an already there friend. That was nice. Selene didn't understand how everyone trusted the Weasleys so much. That clock of theirs was quite plainly incredibly Dark magic!

* * *

The Lovegoods had always gotten the Daily Prophet, because Xenophilius liked to see what the competition was up to. It was nowadays extraordinarily depressing. There were more and more deaths every week. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was winning.

"I don't think this is very good," said Xeno one morning at breakfast. "The war, you know."

"I agree," replied Selene. "It's not very good at all."

They both looked at their children. Luna could sit up by herself now, and she was happily making a mess out of her dry cereal. John had fallen back asleep.

"This isn't a good world for children to grow up in," said Xenophilius.

"It most certainly is not," said Selene. "I hope there will be peace."

But they knew it was unlikely.

Everyone knew the Ministry was full of allies and sympathizers. Selene was suspicious of many of her colleagues, especially Augustus Rookwood. She was glad to not be there, but she did miss hearing all the gossip and rumors.

One of her friends down in the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects had come around the other day. She delivered all the whispers and tidbits she had heard, about the executioner down in Regulation and Control, the cafeteria ladies (Selene found that not at all surprising), and even the son of the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement! They were a bit sceptical of that one, though. Bagnold was doing what she could, but what she could do amounted to very little. Even Albus Dumbledore seemed no match against the fearsome Dark tide. At least Hogwarts was still under his control.

* * *

Then it happened. It was October 31. They were having treacle tarts and pumpkin juice for the holiday. John had managed to cover himself in pumpkin juice. He seemed extremely happy about it.

Suddenly they heard—a bang? Fireworks? It happened again.

There was a knock at the door. Who could that be? They occasionally got Muggle solicitors, but it was awfully late for that.

Selene opened it. An out of breath red haired boy stood on the doorstep.

"You-Know-Who's been defeated!" he exclaimed. "We weren't sure if you'd heard."

Xenophilius came to the door.

"I can't believe it!" said Selene to him.

"Can't believe what?" he asked, frowning.

"You-Know-Who's been defeated!" said the boy again.

"Oh! said Xeno. He was too in shock to say anything else.

The Weasley child ran off.

"You know what this means," said Xeno.

"We no longer live in a world of constant fear and darkness?" asked Selene.

"Oh, well, yes, that, but it also means I need a new front page story for tomorrow's _Quibbler_."

"But you don't know what happened."

"That's true. I don't know what happened."

"You could just write VANQUISHED at the top in extra large letters."

"That's a terrific idea!" Xenophilius smiled and kissed his wife on the forehead.

* * *

In the morning, an owl rapped impatiently at the window. It was an invitation to a You-Know-Who's Been Defeated party to be held that evening.

"I don't know about this," said Selene, glancing at Luna and John. "Where would we put them?"

"I think they would both make very nice table centerpieces at such a gathering," replied Xenophilius, leaning over her shoulder to read the invitation. "Oh, look! Child minding will be provided!"

The party was at the MacMillan house in Leavesden. Selene and Mrs MacMillan had been in the Gobstones club at Hogwarts together. Mr MacMillan was a pleasant enough man who wrote for _Seeker Weekly_. Selene had sent them a little baby blanket with Golden Snitches on it for the birth of their son the previous year.

It was considered unwise to Apparate or Floo with infants, but flying there would take several hours. There was one broomstick in the house, and it was an absolutely ancient Shooting Star that could go at most 35 mph with a good tail wind.

"Probably nothing will happen if we Apparate," said Xenophilus. "My dear old second cousin thrice removed Bertie Twilkins Apparated with his son all the time and it was fine!"

"I just don't know," said Selene, frowning. John had just become able to hold himself up for a _very_ short time, which was absolutely crucial for Side-Alonging with a baby, but it was still worrisome.

"When was the last time you left the house?" asked her husband.

"Too long," she replied, sighing. "Fine, we'll Apparate."

With two pops they were in the MacMillan's parlor. All four of them were still thankfully in one piece. Selene patted John's little tufts of black hair.

"Hello!" said Lettie MacMillan. "How do you do!"

"Very good, very good, very good, thank you muchly," said Xenophilius, smiling.

"Who's this?" asked Lettie, peering at John.

"This is John," said Selene.

"Er, well, he's, not _yours_ , is he?" asked Lettie, sounding confused.

"He is now!" said Selene cheerfully.

"We didn't steal him, don't worry," said Xenophilius. "We just found him outside."

Lettie nodded slowly.

"Come with me," she said, walking up the stairs. The banister was very elaborately carved with dragons. They had been enchanted to move. Luna grabbed at one.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway. There was one open door.

"Ah, this here is Jenny, she's my husband's Squib brother's daughter…," said Lettie, gesturing to the girl in the room. "She's taken all those Muggle child minding certification courses or what have you."

"Oh, good," said Xenophilius. "I was worried you'd have an elf. I'd never trust a child around an elf."

Selene gingerly placed John on the floor. Xenophilius put Luna next to him.

"Goodbye for now, John," said Selene.

"Goodbye for now, Luna," said Xenophilius.

* * *

The amount of food was enormous. There were great slabs of meat and a huge dessert table and tray after tray of delicious items, from soft-boiled eggs to cottage pie to watercress sandwiches. There was Ogden's finest and punch that Mrs MacMillan said was a traditional family recipe passed down for generations. The music was at a good volume level, enough to enjoy but not enough to make conversation impossible. Someone had procured from a Muggle party store a stack of white masks, and people were happily setting them on fire.

Xenophilius was ensconced in a boisterous conversation with Sidney Goldstein and David Rickett about import regulations, especially with regards to the newly passed rules involving ink, seedless fruits, and spherical magical items not more than four and seven eighths inches in circumference. Sidney was gesticulating so wildly that the small little cap on his head almost fell off.

"I planned on buying my son this floating ball from Finland, but it would have taken six months to get here!" he said loudly. "If only it had been five sixths of an inch smaller! Isn't that ridiculous?"

"My son has one of those, but it's Welsh," said David. "Some parenting magazine my wife read says the Finnish ones are a choking hazard."

Sidney nodded. "You've got a daughter, don't you, Xeno?" he asked.

"Yes, and a son," Xenophilius replied.

"Oh, is he a lot older?"

"No, we found him on the doorstep this summer," he said, smiling.

Sidney and David stared at him.

"We supposed it was because of, you know, the war," Xenophilius said. "Haven't a clue where he came from."

"Ah—well—that's very good of you to take him in, then," said David. "Did you take him to St Mungo's?"

"No, no, we didn't," said Xeno. He frowned. That would be a good idea, wouldn't it?

"Perhaps not tonight, though," said Sidney, "considering how the people here are acting." David and Xenophilius chuckled. There was a clearly inebriated wizard dancing on top of a table, and a pair of witches in the corner happily casting charms of some nature on each other.

* * *

A few days later, Xenophilius mentioned to his wife that it would be a good idea to take little John to St Mungo's.

"I think it would be a better idea to ask if a Medi-Witch can come here," said Selene.

"Hm," said Xenophilius. "Hmm hmmm hmmmm."

"Maybe we can get the same one that came to check up on Luna after she was born," Selene said.

"Yes, she was very nice," said Xeno.

"Yes, she was," said Selene. "I'll Floo for an appointment right now."

The Medi-Witch came the next day. They explained the story, and how he seemed a little behind compared to his age. She poked and prodded at John. She looked in his ears and mouth and gently tapped on all parts of him with her wand.

"He seems quite alright," she said. "But you should still take him to St Mungo's. He might have been spell damaged by whomever abandoned him." Then she Disapparated.

Xenophilius and Selene looked at each other.

"How should we get there?" she asked, disparingly. "It would look awful if you showed up having Apparated with a baby."

"It'll be fine," he said.

"It won't be fine," she said.

"Maybe Arthur Weasley would be willing to drive us in his, ah, automobile," said Xenophilius.

"I suppose. Ministry employees have the week off, so he's probably at home," she said. "I'm not sure how much I trust that either, but it's surely at least slightly safer."

"I'll go ask."

He walked down the dusty path to the Burrow. It was chilly. He wrapped his thin robe about himself tighter. A chicken ran across the road. Where was it going? What did it want?

He knocked on the door three times, for good luck. A red haired boy opened it, but not the same one who had visited the Lovegoods to tell them about the demise of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

"Hullo," said the boy.

"Hullo," said Xenophilius. "Is your father home?"

"He's out in the garage if you'd like to talk to him."

"Thank you muchly," said Xenophilius smiling.

The garage was in the same state of disarray as the house. Arthur Weasley sat in the middle, happily tinkering on something.

"Hello, Xenophilius," said Arthur.

"Hello, Arthur," said Xenophilius.

"What brings you over here?" asked Arthur. Despite being neighbors, the two families did not frequently interact with one another.

"Ah, I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you. I'd like to bring my son to St Mungo's, but my wife doesn't think it would make a good impression to Apparate with him, so—we were wondering—if you might be willing to drive us there."

"Certainly!" said Arthur, smiling. "Molly hates when I drive, but she can't say no if I'm doing someone a favour. I'll just go tell her now." He stood up and started walking into the Burrow, and was out shortly.

"Is he very ill?" asked Arthur, as he drove up to the Lovegood home.

"Oh, no, he's fine," said Xeno. "We just found him on our doorstep and the Medi-Witch thinks he might have been spell damaged by whomever dropped him off."

"Goodness, a baby on the doorstep!"

"Well, the war," said Xenophilius.

"Oh, that's certainly true, certainly true indeed," replied Arthur.

Xenophilius opened the front door.

"The automobile is outside," he said. "I'd rather if you go, so I can get some work done."

"Let me put Luna down for her nap," said Selene. "And then I will go."

* * *

Selene decided she very much did not enjoy riding in an automobile. She was afraid John was going to fly out of her arms.  
Arthur let them out in front of the department store that was the façade of St Mungo's.  
"I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron," he said as she awkwardly stepped onto the sidewalk.

"Thank you," she called as he drove off.

* * *

The Healers poked and prodded at John even more. They agreed that it was possible that someone had done something to him.

"Hmm," said Healer Lansdown, looking at one of the instruments.

"I don't like the looks of this at _all_ ," said Healer Humphreys.

"Neither do I," said Healer Lansdown.

Selene was afraid.


End file.
